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With the exception of a handful of states, including Florida and New Jersey—which require car accident victims to file claims against their own auto insurance policies—most states have fault-based insurance laws. Under a fault-based insurance system, it matters who causes a car accident or how much each involved driver contributed to the cause of the accident.
After a car accident in Connecticut, an insurance company assigns an adjuster to the case to investigate the accident. Naturally, their goal is to protect their profits—often at an injury victim’s expense. The best option for counteracting this and other tactics is to hire a New Haven car accident attorney to investigate the accident and document evidence supporting your best interests.
Call (203) 888-8888 to speak with the expert lawyers from Weber & Rubano today.
In a fault-based insurance system, the driver or other entity—such as a negligent road maintenance agency—at fault for the accident is liable for an injury victim’s damages through their insurance policy. Connecticut operates under a modified comparative negligence system that assigns a percentage of fault to each driver involved in an accident. Under this system, a motorist may still recover compensation even if they contributed to an accident. Connecticut Stat § 52-572l. (2023) states:
“In causes of action based on strict tort liability, contributory negligence or comparative negligence shall not be a bar to recovery.”
A motorist who suffers injuries in a car accident in Connecticut can recover damages as long as they are less than 51% at fault. The insurance company subtracts their percentage of fault from the amount of compensation they pay on the claim.
Some states, such as California, have pure comparative negligence insurance systems that allow accident victims to file claims even if they are 99% at fault, in which case the claimant would recover 1% of their damages.
After a Connecticut car accident, insurance companies investigate the cause of the accident and assign a percentage of fault to involved drivers. In some cases, it’s clear. For example, if a speeding driver swerves out of their lane around a curve and causes a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle through no fault of the other car’s driver, then the speeding driver is 100% at fault and liable for damages to injury victims in the other vehicle.
In some accidents, establishing fault isn’t as clear. For instance, suppose a driver tries to make it through a yellow light by speeding up and still enters the intersection after the light turns red, colliding with a vehicle already in the intersection. It appears the driver who ran the red light is completely at fault. But what if the driver already in the intersection was speeding when the accident occurred?
The insurance company could determine that the driver in the intersection would have avoided the accident if they hadn’t exceeded the speed limit because their speeding placed them further into the intersection than they would have been otherwise. In this example, they could determine the driver who ran the red light as 80% at fault and assign 20% fault to the speeding driver. If the speeding driver’s damages amount to $100,000, they can still recover $80,000.
The driver who ran the red light would not be able to recover their damages under Connecticut’s modified comparative negligence insurance law because they were more than 51% at fault.
The insurance company investigating an accident does not have the injury victim’s best interests as their primary purpose. Instead, their job is to protect the company’s profits. Often, this incentivizes them to assign a portion of fault to the injury victim that might be inaccurate.
After a car accident, call the New Haven personal injury attorneys at Weber & Rubano at (203) 888-8888 or contact us online to protect your best interests throughout the claim process so you can recover the maximum compensation available.